without witness
by hollyhobbit101
Summary: The Doctor returns to Gallifrey.


She goes home sometimes. Drops her friends somewhere beautiful, somewhere that will let them forget all the darkness she's wrought on them, and leaves. She lies about where she goes, because they would want to come with her if they knew, and she can't allow that. Gallifrey is a burden that she must carry alone, as she has always done. Besides, they have already seen their own world destroyed. They do not need to see another.

The destruction of her home is absolute, and she spends hours searching through the ruins of her planet, returning for her friends far later than she promised them. But she refuses to leave a stone unturned; she knows the Master better than anyone, and she knows that he would know she'd come back. He's left something for her here, she can feel it.

She searches under what's left of the dome, picking her way through stone and marble and glass and bone. If she listens hard enough, she can still hear the sounds of the Time War, like she'd never stopped it at all. Had they screamed the same, when the Master came for them? The wall she had once carved upon still stands, though it now only says 'Gallifrey Falls'. 'No More' lies at her feet, smashed into rubble. _Is this his message?_ she wonders, but she decides that it isn't. The Master has always appreciated subtlety when it comes to her.

It takes her three trips to finally find it. She should have realised sooner, really; how could it be anything but this? Everything on Gallifrey destroyed, the dome, the outlying villages, everything - except a barn in the middle of the desert, from which the planet was almost brought down.

The door creaks as she pushes it open, the sound too loud in an otherwise silent world. It hasn't been so long since she was here last, but she still feels half a child when she walks in, everything just as she remembers from her youth. The Master rarely came here when they were young; most of the time, they played in his father's estate, for it had everything a young Time Lord could want. She only brought him once, and once was enough.

There are so many echoes in this place, though not like the ones in the centre of Gallifrey, screaming and dying. It's quieter here. Gentler. Kind, and almost peaceful. She does not know what to make of it.

"I knew you'd come back here."

She stiffens at the sound of his voice, hands clenching at her sides. But when she turns to face him, it's just another hologram, like the one on the TARDIS. He grins at her suddenly, and for a moment she wishes he were real, if only so she could punch that smirk off his face.

"But then," he continues, taking a step forward. "You knew that already, didn't you?"

"Why?" she hisses, though she knows he can't hear her. "Why did you do this?"

"Because I had to," he says simply, and maybe she should be surprised, but he knows her too well. He probably imagined this conversation a thousand times over, figuring out her responses before she even knows them herself. "After everything they did to us, everything they put us through - don't you think they deserved it?"

"No-one deserves this." She shouldn't talk back to him, she knows this, but she can't help herself.

"Doctor." The Master tuts, as though reprimanding a child. "You don't really believe that."

She turns away from him, unable to look at him any longer. She wants to deny him the satisfaction of being right, hologram or no, but she can't. She has too much blood on her own hands for that.

"If you knew what I did," the Master continues, "you would have done the same, I promise you. You'll figure it out, sooner or later, and then maybe you and I can have another little chat.

He's silent for a while and she thinks he's gone, but when she turns around the hologram is still there. He's staring right at her, as though waiting for her to look at him again. She hates that he can predict her so well.

"Do you want to know something, Doctor?" he says eventually. "I had so much fun, watching it all burn. You should have seen it - oh, it was glorious. Much better than the first time round, if you ask me."

She gapes at him, horrified in a way that she shouldn't be. She knows him just as well as he knows her, yet she is still somehow always surprised by the lengths he goes to. She'd thought - perhaps naively - that she'd made progress with Missy, though she doesn't even know if he has lived that life yet. But maybe this is just always how it is going to be with them.

"There's something else you should know." He looks almost sad now, but she knows the remorse is fake. "When they were dying, and the citadel was burning, they all screamed the same thing. A name. Shall I tell you what it was."

"No," she says, dread forming in the pit of her stomach. "No, please."

But, of course, there's no stopping him. He leans in close, and whispers, "Doctor."

He moves back, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, and it's too much. She runs past him, all the way back to the TARDIS, his laughter and the phantom screams chasing her long after she's left the ruins of Gallifrey behind her.


End file.
